Computer systems are currently in wide use. Some such computer systems are used to host services in a cloud deployment.
There are a wide variety of different types of computer systems that host services in a cloud deployment. Some examples include, for instance, document management computing systems that allow users to manage documents using a cloud service. Still other computing systems include electronic mail computing systems, computing systems that implement development environments, social network computing systems, among a wide variety of others.
It is not uncommon for the computing systems to be intermittently upgraded. For instance, the computing system manufacturer may release an upgraded build. In these types of situations, organizations that use the computing system may wish to upgrade to the new build. There are a wide variety of other types of upgrades that can be performed, and which users may wish to take advantage of.
In multi-tenant deployments, the cloud-based computing system often includes a plurality of different servers. The servers may include a plurality of different hardware computing systems that implement a plurality of different virtual machines. The virtual machines can include web servers that perform front end processing to accommodate service interactions by the various tenants, with the computing system. The virtual machines can also include back end servers that perform back end processing, such as processing against a database, or other types of back end processing. As but one example, it may be that such a computing system uses 40-200 different virtual machine servers which are deployed on a large number of hardware machines. A group of servers that serve a group of tenants is often referred to as a server farm.
Currently, when upgrades are made, a target server farm is created. The target server farm is created with at least the same capacity (in terms of hardware machines and virtual machines) as a source server farm that is to be upgraded to the target server farm. Once the entire target farm is created, then the databases are disconnected from the source farm and are reconnected to the target farm.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.